I'm known for my strong views on mobile technology, online media, and the effect this has on and communication will have on the public conscious and existing businesses.
I've been following this space for over ten years, working with a number of publishers, publications and media companies, some for long periods of time, others for commissions, one-off pieces or a series of articles or shows.
As Scotland’s first podcaster, I continue to be a prominent voice in the rise of podcasting and new media online, and picked up a British Academy (BAFTA) nomination for my annual coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, alongside contributions to Radio 5 Live, the BBC World Service, presenting Edinburgh local radio's coverage of the General Election.
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[An update to] Google Play Services ships every six weeks and 93% of our users are on the latest version of Google Play services across all versions of Android. In fact by shipping every six weeks we can, in many ways, iterate faster than the typical OS release cycle.

While Google is rightly criticised for the fragmentation of Android when compared to iOS (89% of iOS users are on iOS7, the latest version of the software, only 13.6% of Android users are running KitKat and 58.4% are a version back on the Jelly Bean implementation; Bloomberg), the spread of version numbers can be easily explained when you look at the time it takes for the vast numbers of handset and operator combinations to be certified both at launch and for each firmware update.

Google Play Services is a practical way around this issue. Bundled inside the Google Play Services app are a huge number of APIs for Android developers, security updates, software patches to the underlying Android code, and other smaller tweaks and tools to vital areas of Android. By updating this application, Google can keep as many Android devices and Android users up to date with software, services, and security issues.

As Pichai points out, “We [Google] want to ship features as fast as possible”, which is a huge benefit to Android users. The majority of Google’s apps are outside of the firmware and are updated via Google Play (apps such as Gmail, Chrome, Maps, and Google Play Music). There’s no waiting for a point release on the firmware to go from Google, to the manufacturer, to the network, and then rolled out as an over the air update… the apps simply update through the store framework.

That same flexibility and speed allows Google to patch and update much of Android directly using the Google Play Services app, reducing the time it takes to get changes to users, and making a better, safer, and stable Android experience easier to implement.

It’s also outside of the open source project.

Google Play Services on Android (image: Ewan Spence)

While manufactures such as Amazon (with the Kindle Fire tablets and now the Fire smartphone) and Microsoft (with the Nokia X family of Android smartphones) have built their hardware as Android devices thanks to the code available through the Android Open Source Project, they do not have access to Google’s proprietary applications. Nor do they have access to many of the APIs that developers are encouraged to use by Google.

To maintain parity with Google requires a significant investment of time, resources, and on-line support. That is beyond the majority of manufacturers. Only Amazon has made a (potential) success with a fork of Android, and that says a lot about the resources required… which makes me wonder how much investment Microsoft will be making to support the Nokia X family.

By being in complete control of the access to Google Play Services, and by association the other closed source apps that consumers feel are integral to the Android experience, Google acts as a gatekeeper to the successful Android world.

It also means that the focus on the version number of Android devices in the wild is not as important in terms of delivering user experiences as the version of Google Play Services. It is right to point out that the latest major version of Android (KitKit) is only running on 13.6% of Google’s Android users, but that’s not as important to Google as having Google Play Services up to date on as many handsets as possible. While Google Play Services acts like an app, the permissions level it is granted means it is more akin to a system process that grants Google admin rights across your smartphone.

At this months WWDC, Tim Cook announced that 89% of iOS users were running iOS7 or later, comparing it to the KitKat installation percentage, which was almost a magnitude lower. But 93% of Google’s Android user base are running the latest version of Google Play Services, and therefore the latest version of Google’s vision of Android.

Google has skated towards a different puck. One that benefits the user with faster updates, that gives Google by a direct line to billions of Android handsets, that puts up barriers to the competition, and allows them to bypass the traditional firmware update route.

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Ewan, it doesn’t solve the developer problem entirely. Because the UI/UX is integral to the Android version, you can’t develop to Kit Kat when virtually no one uses it. You can use >certain< APIs and many services, knowing nearly everyone has them. But this is only a piece of the puzzle — and even Google would admit that.

Agreed Mark, but it is a big piece of the puzzle. Given the nature of Android across handsets/networks/continents/etc it’s certainly the best short-to-medium answer that Google has. Throw that in, with the commercial barriers it raises to entrants *not* wanting to participate with Google’s vision, and it’s a win for Mountain View. An edgy, scrappy, win, but a win.

Ewan, this does not allow security to be patched – at least not completely – since Google cannot replace those bits of code provide by the manufacturers. I’m thinking along the lines of hardware drivers and interface implementations (i.e. those parts of the Android API that are merely interfaces rather than implementations). So, since Google can’t replace those, any security holes or bugs they contain continue to live.

That’s a funny way to write off fragmentation and attempt to make Google look good. Latest vision, not version “the latest version of Google’s vision of Android” Actually I am pretty sure 100% of iOS users get the Apple store updates, even the first iOS versions update it and over 90% have the latest OS. Google Play is different than the OS, where the majority of Android users don’t have the latest version of the operating system, as mentioned. Some Android vendors offer their own service and store, not Google Play too and I doubt they are counting those.

You mentioned quite a few exceptions yourself, and they affect millions of phones. It is not only Android forks like Amazon’s which are excluded from those updates, it is the majority of devices sold in China (without any Google services), many local implementations in India and Indonesia, even US devices (like some sold by Verizon) that deliberately cut off Google services. 93% of 50-60% is NOT outperforming Apple’s iOS7 adoption rate at all. It is somewhat OK for Google to spin this nonsense, it is not OK to report this as a fact.

The idea that Google Play updates can address all security issues and bugs is simply wrong, they can’t, especially in cases where those risks are part of the OEM’s customization. Due to the nature of Android (which admittedly has pros and cons) end users’ safety can in most cases not be controlled by Google alone. This might in some cases not be Google’s fault alone, but insinuating that an individual applying all Google Play updates is safe, is absolutely misleading.

The point (for Google) is that these apply to Google’s version of Android, not the Android Open Source Project and forks. If a manufacturer wants the support and new stuff, they sign up to Google’s version, licence the closed source apps, and they are in. If you want to be on your own and set out your down path, you can… but you have to replicate many of the services. That raises the barrier of entry to competitors vision of Android.

This is nothing but BS, most people are running an old version of Android, there is nothing google play can do to bring the experience to its current version. Trust me, I know I use an Android phone and its full of bugs. The first one I had to ditch it, could not upgrade past android 2.3. This one was stuck on android 4, I had to remove the OS and install a MOD to get it up to 4.4. Most people do not know how to do that and they get stuck with an old version. So to Google, stop your lies, this is my last Android phone, they suck big time, I would have spent less money buying an Apple phone for the two I have bought due to their worthlessness. In two years two phones, over $1,000 wasted, and all I hear is that people having an iphone4 can still upgrade to the latest version of their IOS. So yes, Android sucks big time and it cost more buying something cheap. This is what we say about buying cheap chinese crap, the same applies to cheap android crap.

goodness gracious Ewan – looks like your glowing praises of google have been plum shot full of holes by a bunch of measly commenters. Care to correct them? or maybe you can’t. if you can’t, maybe you should do just a little more digging and a little less blogging.

Ain’t you comparing apple with orange? Google Play can only enforce certain permissions and coding practices. But features and security are ensured by the update of the OS itself. If the OS does not have a feature enabled, or a hole plugged, then no matter which version of Play you got you are still helpless.

Lets talk about Apple, they don’t have a single codebase either. They have plenty of fragmentation, but it’s behind closed doors. No version of iOS8 is alike, every device has it’s own cut, differing in features from the next device. Pretty dishonest to pretend it’s one single thing, when it’s lots.

Then you have the screen aspect ratio and resolution fragmentation. iOS doesn’t sale, AT ALL. Apple release a new formfactor and everyone has to rerwite their apps, consumers have to rebuy the apps for their new device. Android is actually doing amazing things considering it has to support 3000 or so devices, and 140 or so device classes. Apple support a handful.

It’s more than a little misleading to compare iOS adoption figures with Google Play Services app adoption rates. The former updates the *whole* system, including graphics drivers, APIs, etc. The latter only updates those areas Google can reach – i.e. none of the manufacturer-provided implementations, drivers, etc.